The Giants vow not to let a Jason Pierre-Pall hang over them, not with the Cowboys coming to avenge their only defeat, not with a return to the playoffs after four consecutive seasons right in front of them.
“We were down,” Landon Collins said, “but we know if we keep winning these games, he’s gonna be back and gonna be on the field with us. If we play like we’re down, and not come with it all, he’s gonna be down even more because we’re not gonna be in the playoffs.”
JPP, who has grown into a leadership role, was an inspiration to so many of them a year ago when he beat the odds and came back from his firecracker incident with a finger-and-a-half gone, and he will be an inspiration to them now following his sports hernia surgery Wednesday morning.
“That’s the goal: Get him back, and let’s get this championship with him,” Collins said.
It immediately became a spoken goal among the Giants.
“That was definitely said today,” defensive captain Jonathan Casillas said. “I think his injury’s 4-6 weeks, what-have you. JPP is the X-Man, he’s a mutant. The dude came back from blowing his hand off in four months.
“He blew his hand off, and was playing in a football game four months later. That’s a mutant to me. So I think the guy’s gonna be back, and the better we are, the deeper we get in January, and February’s the ultimate goal of course. Hopefully we can get him back.”
The motivation extended to the other side of the ball.
“Hopefully we will win enough games for him so that he can be able to come back and make an impact,” Odell Beckham Jr. said. “It’s unfortunate, especially with what he’s already been through and what he’s been able to overcome already. It’s incredible enough. We all wish he was here.”
“We obviously didn’t know what the circumstances, whether [injured reserve] or not, but it sounds like it’s not, and so that’s the goal, get him back playing,” Eli Manning told The Post.
There was a hole in the Big Blue heart Wednesday morning, particularly in the defensive-line room.
“I love that dude. That’s one of the first dudes I connected with since I got here as a rookie, man, on and off the field,” Jay Bromley said. “It’s hard for us to be in the D-Line room and not have his presence, his comedy, his being late, whatever it is, just him being JPP. We just have to understand that, over time, hopefully, we can continue to push and get him back in there and get around this.
“And we’ll play for him.”
“It’s tough,” Casillas said. “It’s one of our soldiers, you know. And he’s one of the older soldiers that’s been here, in this locker room. … I don’t care what team you came from, if you were in college, you know who JPP is. That’s just the truth. You know he plays for the Giants. You know he’s a bad-ass pass rusher. And everybody knows that. So it’s tough when you don’t have that figure in the locker room anymore.
“He’s a great guy, one of the most humble guys you could ever [meet]. … He’s kind of standoffish a little bit, but at the same time, he’ll give his last dollar to anyone, that’s the type of person he is.”
Casillas said he believes the Giants can overcome this.
“We will. We have to,” Casillas said. “JPP has had good games against Dallas over his career, so we’re gonna be missing him for sure.”
You don’t replace a Jason Pierre-Paul. You will yourself to believe that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Including a game-changing part.
It’s on Kerry Wynn, rookie Romeo Okwara and Owa Odigazuwe to rise and shine. None of them are JPP.
“He legitimately has like the wildest legs I’ve ever seen,” Bromley said. “His leg could touch his shoulder, and he’d get to the quarterback. He has like amazing, impeccable balance, remarkable twists and just be able to bend. I’ve seen him toss 320-pound offensive linemen like it was nothing.”
A statement game without JPP.
“We gotta play our best game this week,” Casillas said. “They do have one loss, so let’s not forget that. Everybody’s talking about how good Dallas is, they’re the best team in the league, you’ve gotta give ’em the credit. But they have one loss, just in case anybody forgot about that.”
Victor Cruz said he planned on calling JPP Wednesday afternoon.
“We know he’ll be back, I guess playoff time or something like that,” Cruz said. “So we want to make sure we get there and we create a platform for him to come back and ease right in and be great.”